Teaching

The course presents design, operation and management concepts of intermodal facilities, including ports, airports, railway stations and transport logistics centers. It focuses on understanding some generic tools for analysis and evaluation of transportation systems. These tools are grounded on a wide spectrum of disciplines such as operations research, traffic theory, analysis of operations, demand modeling and demand forecasting, transport economics, appraisal, transport modeling and flow assignment. An introduction to each of them will be attempted. It also pays attention to the causal and quantitative performance of transport systems as well as the stakeholder behavior (users, transport agencies and society) and their relationship with Information and Communication Technologies. Upon completion of the course, students will have acquired the ability to: 1. Carry out a transport planning study in an urban area. 2. Carry out a study of air and sea transport needs, as well as a cost-benefit analysis to demonstrate cost-effectiveness. 3. Apply appropriate mathematical techniques to transport logistics problems.

The course aims to train students in the planning and management of urban mobility. The focus of the course is conceptual. It gives greater importance to the concepts and ideas to the detriment of facts, statistics and other descriptive aspects. This requires a significant degree of abstraction, which is balanced by homework assignments with a more practical focus. After an introductory session, the course consists of 3 main parts. The first aims to convey the fundamental concepts of planning collective transportation systems, regardless of their technological support used. Specific attention is devoted to the Barcelona case study. The second section deals with paratransit systems, flexible public transportation systems not subject to schedules and routes, and with the more innovative strategies of shared vehicles. Finally, the third section addresses the urban traffic management.

The course presents concepts of transport operations that should be understood by every student of transportation engineering or planning, regardless of his or her background or specific professional interests, and prepares the student for further study in this field. The course focuses on logic, ways of thinking and basic assessment tools (predominantly graphical) suitable in order to obtain solutions to problems that commonly arise in transportation operations. The ideas covered in the course are those that, by virtue of their grounding in physical reality, are most likely to stand the test of time, and should be considered fundamentals.

The course examines the attributes of highway transportation systems, including traffic flow features and theories. Emphasis is given to principles and concepts and their application. It addresses issues regarding freeway/highway traffic operation (i.e. diagnosis). Discussions include methods of measuring traffic variables and of processing these measurements to evaluate prevailing conditions, to identify bottleneck locations, to uncover bivariate relations, etc. Considerable discussion is also be devoted to techniques for modeling traffic. This is only the first part of a traffic operations course. Freeway management techniques and highway traffic control (e.g. signal systems) are out of the scope of the course.